THEIR POINTS ARE MADE IN NEEDLEWORK

Eric and Joan Bancel say it isn't so. The Bancels design and make custom needlepoint patterns. For them, needlepoint subjects are limited only by their imaginations.

"In addition, it's absorbing and relaxing. It lifts you out of yourself," says Joan. "You can become enthralled with the textures of the wool or floss or simply with the repetition of the stitches."

Practicing what they preach, they have surrounded themselves with a collection of beautiful, colorful and playful creations patterned on their own fantasies.

For 15 years, strollers along Fort Lauderdale's Las Olas Boulevard have glimpsed examples of their work through the windows of Needlepoint Originals. Inside, handbags decorated with needlepoint vie for attention with large and small needlepoint rugs that cover the floor and hang from walls. Piles of cushions in bright primary colors are shaped to look like large pieces of fruit; others are shaped like clowns, animals, cartoon figures and flowers.

Geometric patterns are mathematically correct copies of the brilliantly hued works of Victor Vasarely, a contemporary artist known for his paintings based on optical illusions. Other finished pieces are copies of custom designs commissioned to commemorate people, animals, homes or events in the lives of customers in South Florida and elsewhere.

The completed work is displayed to inspire people to begin. "Try it, you'll like it," says Joan.

A beginner may learn basic stitches by making a Christmas tree ornament that will take less than two hours to complete and cost about $7 for the canvas pattern and yarn. At the other end of the spectrum, $550 will buy a pattern and wool for a 3-by-5-foot rug that may take from six months to a year to complete. A pattern for an 8-by-10-foot carpet (which is done in several panels) might cost as much as $2,000, excluding the price of blocking or, as Joan puts it, "preparing the finished work for its final purpose." The rugs also can be used as wall hangings. The yarns used are the same as those used in Oriental carpets, so they will wear forever, she says.

Some custom patterns are quickly completed; others are time consuming. For example, one customer wanted a 3-by-5-foot rug to match some wallpaper in her home. It took almost a year to assemble the colors.

Another sent a picture of a large, white, one-story home with blue trim in a wooded setting in north Florida. The woman and her husband recently had lost their son and had tied a yellow ribbon around a Florida oak in his memory. "Because of this loss, they couldn't bear to stay in the house any longer," says Joan. "But before selling it they wanted a needlepoint picture complete with the yellow ribbon." She painted a 24-by-15-inch pattern of the house, complete with a geometric border.

Still another customer wanted to cover eight dining room chairs in a special pattern set on an 18-point mesh. "This is petit point," says Joan. "It's very fine, detailed work and we thought it would be difficult for her to do. Trying to be tactful, we set the pattern on a larger mesh. She returned to complain that she didn't enjoy working on the larger mesh and we had to start over. We've learned that for some people, the tinier the stitch, the more they like it. This has nothing to do with age, even with eyesight. It's just a preference."

Joan developed an interest in needlepoint by accident in 1966 when she graduated with a fine arts degree from City College of New York and went job hunting. "A newspaper ad led me to a very prestigious needlework shop at 65th and Madison Avenue frequented by people like Princess Grace of Monaco, Artie Johnson (of the television show Laugh In ) and his wife and actor James Stewart's wife, Kay. Before I walked in that door, I knew nothing about needlepoint."

By the time she left, two years later, she had a fine education in traditional needlepoint. Two years more at Woolworks, a trendsetting needlework shop also in Manhattan, gave her expertise in avante-garde patterns. "They taught me the other side of the coin," she says.

After marrying Eric, then manager of a Manhattan factory, she continued to bring needlepoint home at night. One evening when she put it down to go into the kitchen, he picked it up and finished off several rows. "From then on we spent winter evenings doing needlepoint together," she says. Within a few months, they had filled a hall closet with needlepoint pillows.

In 1970, they decided to move to Fort Lauderdale and open a needlepoint shop. Today they are still at the same address and needlepoint has become the center of their lives and the center of their friendships. They even take it to the beach.

When they return home in the evenings, their Doberman greets them at the door wearing a needlepoint collar. After dinner, Eric designs and does needlepoint in the living room while Joan retires to her workshop to translate designs into a mathematical precision and paint the resulting pattern on canvas. The workshop opens into the living room. "I can see television as I work and it's exactly 10 steps to the refrigerator," she says. "This is important because when I finish two patterns, I reward myself with two chocolate cookies. To reduce guilt, I give half of the second cookie to the dog."